Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Despite the government's enthusiasm for a third runway at Heathrow, it's reported that Heathrow's owners have decided not to build it.

When the government said it would give the go ahead to the runway, I thought it might make it harder for them to say yes to the new coal power station at Kingsnorth. It didn't occur to me that, like BAA with Heathrow, E.On might lead the way themselves.

The decision by E.ON marks an end to one of the most bitterly fought environmental campaigns in British history. The admission, which emerged after an unplanned and off-the-cuff remark from one of the company’s German officials, will be greeted with delight by environmentalists

"This development is extremely good news for the climate and in a stroke significantly reduces the chances of an unabated Kingsnorth plant ever being built," said Greenpeace executive director John Sauven.

"The case for new coal is crumbling, with even E.ON now accepting it's not currently economic to build new plants. The huge diverse coalition of people who have campaigned against Kingsnorth because of the threat it posed to the climate should take heart that emissions from new coal are now even less likely in Britain."

He added: "Ed Miliband [the environment secretary] now has a golden opportunity to rule out all emissions from new coal as a sign of Britain's leadership before the key Copenhagen climate meeting. With E.ON's announcement he's now got an open goal."

3 comments:

Don't be so sure Evey, coal is already far cheaper than anything else.

The rush was on to get new coal built to plug the 'energy gap' when the old stations come offline in 2015. The cancellation (sorry, 'long term delay') of kingsnorth strongly implies the other 8 lining up behind it won't get built.

Meanwhile, government requirements to fit Carbon Capture to new coal make it very expensive, and that'll only rise, as price for putting up renewables effectively drops.